Advertising blunders we never see... or shouldn't

And they were very rarely advertised.

They say advertisers publish their mistakes, while doctors bury them! For my money, neither of them can be deemed very professional.

Black was the new black

But there were some gems. I am sure you no doubt know of the odd blunder yourself. Such as the direct mail piece I once saw for Playboy magazine that had a reply card all in black with reversed out type - where the recipient was expected to write his or her response details with a white ink pen. Or use 'Tipp-Ex' or something. God knows what the art director was thinking.

We once did a similar all-black, member-get-member mailer for Porsche, but we opted to leave the reply card in white. We won a Clio Award for that campaign, so it was obviously a wise option.

Err deluxe magnum

In those days, the all-time winning advertising blunder came from an agency that ventured into direct mail with a lawnmower brand - I fail to recall the brand name, though. So much for effective advertising. Anyway, they, or it, mailed literally thousands of direct response mailers to flat dwellers in Braamfontein and Hillbrow in Johannesburg. Now, either their agency geniuses were smoking something green or they thought flat owners have large expanses of private lawn to mow. You take your pick.

Which brings me to my latest advertising irk... Outsurance's invisible man. While I think the campaign concept is terrific in theory, the client should have enlightened its agency on how car insurance works.

Third party must come to the party

In reality, you only need claim car accident insurance if you are the wrong doer. That is, you are the cause of the accident. That's why we have insurance policies such as Third Party, Fire and Theft.

If, however, a third party drives into you from the rear - in accordance with the rules of the road - the third party is automatically at fault. In which case he [the driver of the vehicle behind you] is the one needing insurance - not you.

One would assume Outsurance should know this.

And how many times has its TV commercial been flighted now? Yet nobody else seems to have picked up on this. The lady driver of the blue golf that gets hit from the rear in the TV commercial - and who comes across to me as the Outsurance client - has no need to claim from her insurance. So the invisible man should not be fixing her car. She was never at fault.

Or am I missing something here?

If not, Outsurance now tops my existing advertising blunders of all time!